The corrosion was so bad that the battery holder nearly fell off the board when I started cleaning it up. The corrosion had eaten through the metal pins that hold the battery holder to the board. As you can see from the photo above, the corrosion was also affecting the nearby circuitry.

I finished removing the battery holder from the board and flushed the board with white vinegar and scrubbed with a toothbrush. The vinegar helps to neutralize the alkaline. After letting the board dry out for several hours, it still was able to boot up. I installed a remotely mounted battery holder on the inside of the backbox, where if the batteries leak in the future, it won’t damage anything.

I “shopped” the rest of the machine, replacing rubbers, cleaning the playfield, and replaced the bad bulbs. The machine is working great and looking great. I’ve now worked on more Funhouse pinball machines than any other model, breaking the previous record held by Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Fortunately, on the WPC-95 systems, the batteries are mounted on a separate piggy-backed board which saved the CPU board from certain death. But even so, the alkaline affected the cabinet switch connector located right next to the batteries.

The battery holder was removed and the RAM chip at U8 replaced with an anyPin NVRAM module that doesn’t require batteries.

The playfield was cleaned, all of the rubber parts were replaced, as well as the slingshot plastics. The machine is looking good and playing well.

The owner had just purchased the pinball machine from an acquaintance. The playfield was one of the dirtiest I have ever come across. Fortunately, with a lot of elbow grease, Novus 2 polish and some Mill Wax, I was able to get the playfield looking pretty good.

To clean the playfield and replace all of the rubber parts, the ramps had to be removed, then replaced. This is time consuming, but was worth doing.

I installed a new flying hunter killer ship kit for the playfield, since it was missing.

The pinballs were replaced with new ones because the existing ones were badly pitted. The main reason the balls were badly pitted was that the left side kickback was badly damaged. Each time it would fire, it would slam, metal to metal, against the ball, making small pits in it. The metal that was on the ball would come off and wear into the playfield.

Damaged kicker on left, new kicker on right.

By the looks of it, this kicker had been broken for years. Never allow any device that comes in contact with the ball to go un-repaired. The playfield is the most valuable asset in a pinball machine and pitted balls will shorten its life.

The switch on the cannon was intermittently bad. Usually it’s the wires that have broken after the cannon has twisted them back and forth thousands of times. But in this case, it was the switch itself. It was replaced.

It goes without saying that any burned out bulbs were replaced.

By the end, the pinball was playing well and looked great. Some of the mylar on the playfield is bubbling and that will have to be addressed at some point in the future. The biggest problem with removing it will be that the decals on the playfield inserts will not survive the process and I haven’t seen any decal sets for this machine.

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Reviews

"Randy is a true professional with amazing knowledge of electrical wiring, programming, boards and mechanical workings. He has always arrived promptly with all the tools and parts needed to efficiently complete the jobs. Randy has worked on my three Williams machines (Taxi, T2, and Funhouse) and based on his previous work, I am confident he could solve any future issue." --Greg M., Louisville, CO

"Randy was there an hour and found the problem and also a couple other potential issues. He was very professional and knowledgeable and I feel he has the ability to troubleshoot anything pinball or anything electronic for that matter." --Craig H., Broomfield, CO

"Randy just left here and after over 20 years I now have a jukebox that works."--Jeff, Aurora, CO.

"Randy is always very professional and extremely knowledgeable about the work that needs to be done. He is the best out there that can be found for pinball and juke box repairs."--Larry, Sidney, NE.